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Reverse sexism
"Efforts to assist minorities to achieve parity are often called Reverse sexism. For example, an effort to do outreach to women and recruit them to a software project may be described as such. The problems with claims of "reverse sexism" include: * Men are complaining that a privilege they have is being eroded; there is an expectation that the vast majority of attention, effort, and resources will be given to them, and any diminution of this is cause for complaint. * Accusations of reverse sexism are used as an attempt to derail conversations, or to silence women. * Reverse sexism claims are often disproportionate, or used to obscure larger problems. For instance, in an environment where there are 99 things that marginalise women, and one that marginalises men, loud and vigorous complaints of "reverse sexism" may be made, without any reference to the relative scale of the alleged sexism. * The terminology itself is silly. "Reverse sexism," if and when it exists, is simply sexism directed against men. Quoted from previous edit (by somebody else). 'Reverse sexism' as a term theoretically shouldn't exist, as all sexism, whether directed at a male by a female or vice versa, is sexism. 'Reverse sexism' itself is used in context more to describe affirmative action of feminist groups, or at least ideology to that effect. An example of so called "reverse sexism" is when women are offered jobs on the basis of their gender more than their qualifications. An interesting point on this: striving towards workplaces that have equal numbers of men and women is not actually striving towards true gender equality. If true gender equality is taken into account, then people of either gender should be considered based purely on their qualifications, and not gender or, for that matter, race. A workplace that has 84.5% male workforce and 15.5% female workforce can be an example of a workplace that treats both genders equally in job appliance provided that the people in the workplace are the people most suited for the job (regardless of gender). Examples Here are some examples of men claiming "reverse sexism" wrt women in geek communities: * Is BlogHer Conference Guilty of Sex Discrimination? by Michael Grey : "To those organizers I challenge them to look in the mirror and realize that you’ve now become the same evil and sexist pigs you started out with the goal of overcoming." * Google EMEA conference grants for female computer scientists: First comment, Frank Ch. Eigler: "At least the sexism is privately rather than publicly funded." * Left Behind: A male reader (post-doc) writes to the blogger Female Science Professor complaining that he felt discriminated against by receiving an email that invited only women to a dinner. * Grievances about Etsy's recent "Hacker School" with grants for women applicants (regarding this press release ) Women who claim reverse sexism doesn't exist deserve to be treated as sub-humans wherever they go. Further reading * FAQ: Aren't feminists just sexists towards men? (Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog) Category:Concepts